As stated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,223,067 (Levens): "Tapes having pressure-sensitive adhesive layers exceeding 0.1-0.2 mm in thickness tend to be difficult and expensive to manufacture and to have low shear strength. For applications requiring greater thickness, foam-backed pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes such as disclosed in Canadian Pat. No. 747,341 are often employed. However, the porous nature of the foam involves a number of problems such as a tendency to wick liquids. The elastic memory of some foams tends to cause them to lift from low spots on rough or uneven surfaces. Foam layers of less than about 1.0 mm are difficult to manufacture and hence rather expensive". The Levens patent solved those problems by means of a pressure-sensitive adhesive tape such as an acrylate pressure-sensitive adhesive tape, the adhesive layer of which consists essentially of a polymeric pressure-sensitive adhesive matrix filled with glass microbubbles that give the tape the physical appearance and feel of a foam-backed tape. Because the pressure-sensitive adhesive matrix is substantially free from voids, the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer of the Levens tape shows substantially no water absorption.
In spite of their shortcomings, foam-backed pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes continue to be widely used. The Levens foam-like tape also is widely used, but it often has been necessary to apply to each face of its microbubble-filled adhesive layer a layer of unfilled pressure-sensitive adhesive, without which the foam-like tape has not exhibited sufficiently high cohesive strength, especially at elevated temperatures. Because those added layers substantially increase the cost of the foam-like tape, the less expensive foam-backed tapes have continued to dominate the market even though inferior in performance.
As taught in the Levens patent, its microbubble-filled adhesive layer preferably is made by dispersing the glass microbubbles into partially polymerized monomers which then are polymerized by exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The same technique permits the formation of unfilled pressure-sensitive adhesive layers of greater thickness than can be coated economically from solution or emulsion. However, such unfilled pressure-sensitive adhesive layers of greater thickness tend to exhibit lower cohesive strength than do microbubble-filled layers of equal thickness, especially at elevated temperatures. Regardless of thickness or whether filled with glass microbubbles or unfilled, prior efforts to modify pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes to improve cohesive strength usually have resulted in reduced adhesion.